What does CY Leung have in common with al-Qaeda terrorists?

...apart, that is, from them being unlikeable people with rigid inflexible minds intent on forcing their own narrow ideology down everyone else's throat?

Well, neither appears to have heard of the Streisand Effect.

"The Chinese side resolutely opposes terrorism in all manifestations" announced the Chinese government after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  Let's see what they have to say about this case.

New Year, New Lies

A Happy New Year to my readers!  Though I doubt if anyone in Hong Kong is too optimistic about 2015 when the government starts the new year as it ends the old one, by talking crap.

After recounting in tedious detail the events of the past few months since its last dishonest report to its Beijing overlords, the Government somehow concludes its new report by saying "It is the common aspiration of the Central Authorities, the HKSAR Government, and the people of Hong Kong to implement universal suffrage for the CE election in 2017 in Hong Kong as scheduled and strictly in accordance with the Basic Law and the relevant Interpretation and Decisions of the NPCSC".

Well, they were doing all right up to "as scheduled", but the last bit basically ignores everything that brought about the entire umbrella movement protests.  The problem is that the NPCSC's rulings on the political reform process, far from being "strictly in accordance with the Basic Law", completely override the essence of the Basic Law's provision (Article 26) that "Permanent residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall have the right to vote and the right to stand for election in accordance with law.", while its decision that the nominating committee must follow the framework of the previous Election Committee contradicts the requirement (Article 45) for it to be "broadly representative".

This is of course a Catch-22 situation.  When the NPCSC violates the Basic Law, who can one appeal to?  Er, the body entrusted with interpreting the Basic Law - the NPCSC...

Still, the report should be easy to fix.  All the government needs to do is amend "the people of Hong Kong" in the sentence above to "those members of the Hong Kong public who consider sucking up to the Chinese Communist Party to be more important than achieving genuine democracy", and everything will be hunky dory - except for everyone else in Hong Kong.

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I'm walking backwards for Christmas

Saw this on a friend's Facebook and thought it was perfect for a Private Beach Christmas.  Wishing my loyal readers the compliments of the season and a democratic new year!

Basic Liar

Watching the news lately has become more of an ordeal than a pleasure; with various government ministers, mainland bigwigs and pro-government toadies talking total bollocks every day, there is always something to be irritated by.  But few of the many untruths emanating from our northern neighbours recently have left me so furious as Chen Zuoer's accusation that the British were cowards who surrendered meekly to the Japanese invaders who overran Hong Kong in 1941.

It may suit the Chinese Communist Party line to peddle this lie (designed, it seems, to reinforce their other lie that the Joint Declaration is China's business alone), but the historical reality is that the hopelessly outnumbered British and Commonwealth garrison fought bravely against the invaders for 16 days before, with no prospect of success, the then Hong Kong Governor reluctantly surrendered to avoid further loss of life.  A visit to the military cemeteries at Sai Wan and Stanley would show Chen the graves of many of those courageous men he falsely labels cowards.

As it happens, the father (now deceased) of a friend was one of those who fought the Japanese here before enduring more than three years of brutality as a prisoner, initially in a local PoW camp then as a slave labourer in a factory in Japan.  But apart from Hong Kong, Chen's statement is also a gross insult to all the British, Commonwealth and American servicemen who spent several years of their lives fighting against Japan.  My own father was one of them, a signaller on a Royal Navy ship which saw action in the Far East.  Without the efforts of those millions of men, it is quite probable that China today would still be under Japanese rule.

More on this story here and here.

If at first you don't succeed, keep getting it wrong

The Pro-China Morning Post had three goes at getting the right headline for its lead story yesterday, and still failed each time.

Subtle - wrong!  Veiled - wrong!  Try "bleeding obvious".

Is you is or is you ain't?

Only a few weeks ago we were being told that the Umbrella Movement was being backed by insidious foreign forces bent on undermining China.  Now China's Ambassador to Britain tells us that external support for the protests is an "illusion".  I'm so confused...